


Our First Christmas

by transdimensional_void



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Husbands, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 05:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17054402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdimensional_void/pseuds/transdimensional_void
Summary: Dan and Phil celebrate their first Christmas together as a married couple.





	Our First Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally written as a gift for the Dildom Secret Santa 2014. Now published for the first time!)

Dan held his left hand out in front of him and wiggled his fingers just enough to make the platinum band catch the faint light of the setting winter sun. His lips curled up in a smile. Even now, six months after the wedding, just the sight of the ring on his finger filled his stomach with fluttery feelings. It still didn’t seem quite real, that he had managed to marry his absolute favorite person in the entire world. He caught himself signing documents with “Dan Howell” every now and then, but more often than not these days he remembered to write “Lester” instead.

 

He lifted his mug of mulled wine to his lips and took a sip, positioning himself more comfortably in the window seat. They’d moved into their new house back in March, a few months before the wedding, to give themselves plenty of time to settle before the big day. Now it was December 1st, and Dan couldn’t be more excited at the prospect of spending his first Christmas in his new house with his new husband.

 

His happy reverie was interrupted by a loud  _ bang _ from overhead, and he snapped his head back to give the ceiling overhead a quizzical look. Was…someone in the attic?

 

“Phil?” he called. Surely there wasn’t anyone else who could possibly have got into the house…

 

He heard some kind of muffled response from overhead and relaxed. Yep, must be Phil. Rolling his eyes a little — he had  _ just _ got comfortable — Dan set his mulled wine aside and stood up from the window seat. He gave one last glance toward the darkening scene outside and was pleased to note that their neighbors across the street already had their lights up. The glittering line of Christmas lights dangling from the house’s eaves seemed to be flashing a signal, letting him know that the Christmas season had come at last.

 

He shook his head and rolled his eyes again. He was such a sucker for seasonally festive feelings.

 

At the top of the attic stairs he was greeted with a majestic view of Phil’s bum swaying slightly back and forth as he bent over to rummage through a pile of boxes. Dan had to pause for just a moment to admire his husband’s beautiful form. How  _ had _ he got so lucky?

 

“Phil?” he said at last.

 

“Hm?” came his husband’s voice, still muffled as he leaned across the boxes to reach for something on the other side of them, and then, “Oh, Dan. It’s you. Just a minute!”

 

“Who else did you think it would be? Jolly Old Saint Nicholas?”

 

Phil just grunted in reply. After a few seconds more, he gave a particularly loud “Oof!” and then at last stood upright, a battered and bulky old cardboard box clutched in his arms. Dan frowned at the sight of it. It looked very familiar.

 

“It’s the rave tree!” Phil grinned, reaching up to wipe away a drop of sweat rolling down his temple and leaving a streak of dust down the side of his face. “I can’t wait to see how it’s going to look in our new living room.”

 

Dan gave a strained smile. He had been meaning to discuss this very topic with Phil for a week now, but he just hadn’t found the right moment to bring it up. Leave it to Phil to unintentionally force the conversation.

 

“Um, Phil, you know how much I love our tree—“

 

“Me too!” Phil’s grin widened, and he squeezed the dust-covered box to his chest even harder, almost as though he were hugging it. “Remember when we bought it? That was only our second ever Christmas together.”

 

Dan nodded, but before Phil could completely derail him with nostalgia, he hurried on.

 

“Yes, it’s a wonderful tradition, putting it up every year, but I was thinking, now that we have this nice house, and we’re, you know, starting a new chapter in our lives, so to speak… Well, I was thinking we could start a  _ new _ tradition.”

 

“Oh?” Phil’s smile was still in place, but his eyes held a slight confusion.

 

“It’s just, I love the smell of real trees, and…” He could feel himself blushing and almost rolled his eyes. How many years had they been together now, yet somehow Phil could still make him blush. “I just thought it might be fun to go pick out a tree… together.” He said this last bit all in a rush, his teeth clamping down on his lower lip in a nervous gesture he wasn’t even aware of making.

 

He heard Phil set the box softly on the floor of the attic and then take the few steps necessary to close the gap between him. Then he felt Phil’s hands, one on either side of his waist.

 

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” he heard Phil murmur before he felt Phil’s lips press against his own in a gentle kiss. His chest filled with a sense of relief.

 

“And,” he added, when Phil had pulled away, “I was thinking we could still set up our old tree in the office. It should just fit in the corner.”

 

He had expected Phil to greet this idea with enthusiasm, so he was surprised to see that Phil was regarding him with an expression of suppressed amusement.

 

“What?”

 

“You’ve just…” Phil paused a moment to laugh. “Um, you’ve got a little schmutz,” He reached up and rubbed his thumb over Dan’s cheek. “Just right there.”

 

“Ugh, it’s ‘cuz you’re covered in filth, you animal,” Dan replied, his voice filled with mock disgust. “Don’t touch me until you’ve taken a shower.”

 

Phil just giggled and pulled him into a hug again. All Dan could do was roll his eyes. He couldn’t believe this six-year-old was his actual husband.

  
  
  


The Christmas tree, once set up in their spacious new living room, was just as beautiful as Dan had imagined, and it filled their whole house with the heavenly scent of pine. They spent a silly evening decorating it together while sipping spiked eggnog and singing along loudly and off-key to all of their favorite Christmas carols (and multiple rounds of "All I Want for Christmas is You"). Of course, it was a pain hoovering up the needles every day, but in the balance he felt it was worth the extra work.

 

Throughout the month, the space beneath the tree slowly began to pile up with gifts they’d bought, either for each other or for friends and family. Every time Dan placed a gift under the tree for Phil, he would feel a little thrill of anticipation, imagining Phil’s excitement when he at last opened it. Their families had understood that they wanted to spend their first Christmas morning as newlyweds in their new house, so both of their parents and a few other family members were coming down to their house on Christmas Day for a big, traditional dinner.

 

That meant that Christmas morning would be just the two of them, and by the morning of the 24th, Dan was practically dancing with impatience for Phil to just open his presents already. Phil was gone almost all day that day, and around 6:00 in the evening, Dan began watching the clock with a worried glance. Phil had told him he had an errand to take care of that might take some time, but it wasn’t like Phil to be gone all day like this without so much as a text to update Dan on his whereabouts. What kind of errand could possibly be taking this long?

 

At 7:05, just when Dan was beginning to become seriously concerned, Phil burst through the door, cheeks flushed from the cold and face pale with fatigue, but smiling nonetheless.

 

“Finally! I was just about to call in a missing persons report!” Dan called after Phil, who was heading straight down the hall to the office. “What took you so long?”

 

“Just a minute! I have to, um, do something secret,” Phil returned over his shoulder before closing the office door firmly behind him.

 

Dan couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed that, after making him wait so long — and even worry! — Phil was brushing him off like this. Still, Christmas was a time for secrets (and Dan had one or two of his own, after all). He could cut Phil a little slack.

 

That night they went to bed early, but somehow 2:00 AM found Dan lying awake in the dark without having slept a wink.

 

“Are you awake?” he finally whispered to Phil, knowing the answer before he even asked the question.

 

“Yeah, you?” came Phil’s hushed reply.

 

Dan let out a muffled laugh.

 

“Of course I am, you dingus,” but he softened the insult by rolling over just enough to plant a little kiss on Phil’s cheek.

 

“Did you hear a noise just now?” Phil asked when Dan had moved back over to his own side of the bed. “Like, a little rustling…or something?”

 

“Uh, no,” Dan answered. “Or maybe it’s just Santa and his eight tiny reindeer. Better not disturb him, or he’ll only leave you coal.”

 

“No, I’m serious,” Phil said, sitting up. “I heard something. It sounds like it’s coming from the guest bedroom.”

 

“I’ll go check.” Dan was out of bed and at the bedroom door before Phil even had a chance to argue. He was back in just a couple of minutes.

 

“Yep, it was Santa. He said you were on his naughty list, but now that I’ve got video evidence of his existence, I’ve blackmailed him into putting us both on the nice list permanently.”

 

Normally Phil would have laughed at a stupid joke like that, but instead he asked,

 

“What was it really?”

 

Dan just shook his head, and slid into bed beside his husband, pulling him into his arms and squeezing him in a reassuring embrace.

 

“It was nothing, babe. There was nothing there. Just try to get to sleep, okay?”

 

“Okay,” Phil said and then let out a massive yawn. He snuggled down against Dan’s chest, and it wasn’t too much longer before they were both fast asleep, visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads.

  
  
  


Neither of them was up quite as early as they’d meant to be the next morning. Phil was up first, and Dan was gently brought round shortly thereafter by the scent of fresh-brewed coffee wafting from the kitchen. Once they had both made their way to the living room, they attacked the massive pile of gifts in earnest. Dan couldn’t believe all of the thoughtful, weird, and generally amazing gifts Phil had got him, and he was pleased to see that Phil seemed just as happy with his own haul.

 

It wasn’t long before they were down to just one gift each — one small box under the tree marked “Dan” and another, even smaller one, marked “Phil.”

 

“You go first,” Phil blurted, and Dan caught a gleam of excitement in his eye that piqued his curiosity.

 

“All right.” He reached for the tiny box, only about the size of his fist, and ripped into it. Inside was a plain, wooden cube with a shop name he didn’t recognize branded into the lid.

 

“Open it,” Phil urged.

 

When Dan lifted the lid and peered inside, he found a little porcelain house that looked just like their own, decorated with miniature painted lights and garlands, and with little patches of porcelain snow on the roof. On the front of the house, stood on its miniature porch, were two tiny people, one with brown hair, one with black. He lifted the house up by a smooth red ribbon attached to a loop on the roof. On the underside of the ornament someone had hand-painted the words, “Dan and Phil Lester, Our First Christmas.”

 

Dan could actually feel tears in his eyes. He carefully set the delicate ornament to one side and then threw his arms around Phil, hugging him so hard he thought he might crack a rib.

 

“It’s beautiful,” he breathed into his husband’s ear.

 

“I’m so glad you like it,” Phil whispered back. When Dan had let him go, he went on to explain, “I ordered it custom-made more than a month ago, but the shop called yesterday to say they wouldn’t have it finished in time. I hurried over there right away and begged them to rush it, but it ended up taking them all day.”

 

“So that’s where you were!” Any slight resentment Dan might have still felt about Phil’s mysterious disappearance the day before completely vanished.

 

“My turn!” Phil cried then, reaching for the last gift. It was so small, it fit in the palm of his hand. He had the wrapping off in no time, but when he’d lifted the lid of the box, all he found was a folded piece of paper inside.

 

_ Close your eyes _ , it read.

 

He gave Dan a curious look but obediently closed his eyes. With his heart pounding, Dan leapt immediately to his feet, raced to the guest bedroom, and was back in less than a minute. He walked up to Phil and set his present in his lap, then took a step back to watch his reaction.

 

Phil’s first experience of his gift was a warm weight on his knees. The second was a hot wetness lapping at his chin. His eyes sprang open to find a corgi puppy eagerly wiggling around in his lap.

 

“Dan, no! You didn’t!” Phil cried, hands immediately encircling the puppy’s tiny body and holding it up before his face. The little creature didn’t let up its enthusiastic licking for a moment.

 

A shout of laughter escaped Dan.

 

“Yep! I did,” he answered. His heart was practically bursting with joy at the sight of Phil’s expression. All Phil seemed capable of doing was staring at the dog, entranced. “I know you always wanted one, and we couldn’t have a pet at our old flat…” 

 

“Thank you,” Phil breathed and then at last managed to set the puppy aside long enough to tackle Dan to the ground in a bear hug.

 

A few minutes later found them both playing with the puppy, unable to rip their eyes away from its intense cuteness.

 

“You know,” Dan murmured to Phil as he watched the little guy chewing at the edge of one of the many boxes littering the floor, “after all the years we’ve spent together, and all the Christmases, I thought this one would be just like all the others.” He grinned. “I was wrong.”

 

“I think this has been the best Christmas ever,” Phil agreed, leaning over and tweaking the end of Dan’s nose with his fingertip.

 

Dan shook his head and rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

 

“But I think the best is yet to come,” Phil added. And Dan knew he was right.


End file.
